The services provided by many industries require workers to bring ladders to a job site on their work vehicles. For example, utility workers commonly drive trucks and vans which are specially equipped to carry quite large extension ladders. This in turn requires the vehicles to be equipped with means for safely and securely carrying the ladders.
Most vehicular ladder support racks are simply a frame attached to the body of the vehicle for supporting a horizontally disposed ladder. The frame generally has side restraints in the form of side plates or shoulders, with the ladder being tied down by one or more straps or clamps to prevent shifting during transportation. Such an arrangement has a number of drawbacks. It often fails to provide adequate restraint during transportation and does not prevent theft of the ladder when the vehicle is stored. Further, because many ladders now in use are comprised of fiber glass reinforced resin to take advantage of the strength and light weight of this material, the resin tends to wear from the rubbing and chafing to which it is subjected when the ladder is not securely restrained from lateral movement and bouncing during transportation. Also, the height and length of the side restraints of present support racks requires the ladder to be loaded and unloaded from the rear of the truck, which is not always possible when parking restrictions leave no room in the rear. This then requires very difficult maneuvering of the ladder by the worker to remove and replace it over the side shoulders of the support rack, a task which can be extremely difficult for a worker of small stature.
It would be beneficial to have a ladder support which facilitates loading and unloading and yet provides secure restraint during transportation as well as theft prevention during periods of storage. It would further be beneficial to be able to readily load and unload a ladder from either the rear or side of a vehicle. In addition, the locking and unlocking of a ladder from the support ideally should be quick and easy to perform.